A lot of times when people think of chiropractic, they think of low back pain, headaches, or other spinal conditions. However, the truth of the matter is, joint issues also rank high on the list of things we help people with at Carlson Chiropractic Center.
As one of the focal points of National Chiropractic Month, keeping our joints functioning properly is key to living a healthy lifestyle. It is our joints that allow us to move through our day and carry out all of the activities that come with it. Work, play, school, sports, you name it, our joints are working it, but unless we take proper care, our joints are often injured, causing pain and discomfort.
The knees, shoulders, ankles, and spine are the most commonly injured joints. And approximately 30 million doctor visits a year are due to knee and shoulder injuries alone. When you add to that some 150 million to 200 million cases of back pain send people to a doctor every year—many of which can be traced back to joint injuries, you can see that proper care and functioning of the joints is very important to us all.
Joints are designed to withstand the loads placed on them and provide a full range of motion. The movements you perform on a daily basis are critical to long-term joint health. You need to take a little time each day to move a joint through its full range of motion because if you don’t use it, you are setting yourself up for a potential injury and eventually could lose functionality.
Our sedentary lives decondition our joints. When we use our bodies for tasks that are different from the norm, like lifting a heavy box, deconditioned joints may break down. The ACA recommends movement and reminds us that if we feel stiff when we stand up after working at the computer for a while, we’ve been sitting too long. The body was designed to move, and optimally we should get up and stretch at least every 20 minutes.
While the movement is important, it’s also important to focus on proper movement.
The ACA recommends that you protect your joints by following these simple suggestions:
1. When lifting anything from the floor, keep the spine straight and lift with the legs. Do not bend over at the waist and lift with the muscles of the low back. Injuries to the low back are often the result of poor lifting habits.
2. Keep the object being lifted close to your body.
3. Keep your elbows flexed.
4. Keep your head up and your neck straight as you lift.
The health benefits of regular movement encompass so much, and by properly using and moving our joints, we are paving the way to an active, vital, and healthy lifestyle!